How do you stop a leaking ship from eventually sinking?

 

There is much wheeling and dealing in Malaysian politics right now, but how will any outcome without serious systemic and moral changes improve the welfare of the people?

Will a change of captain and crew save a leaking ship with serious structural damage struggling in troubled waters? No, unless it is not more of the same and the crew and captain are not pirates.

It may be the opportune time for the remaking of a new unity nation, not only a unity government now that the old political alliances are undergoing change. Sooner or later, systemic change must happen and with it, the change of character to more moral and caring leadership.

Many feel the country is not on the optimal path of development, a trajectory that offers a future and a hope for every citizen. The old political structures are breaking apart, and the nation's faulty foundations are failing. Leaders of strong moral character are the need of the hour.

Touted by the politicians, national unity demands a key factor, a conviction that is missing from all the political narratives.

How can a nation grow and attain national unity when its citizens are classified by race and religion, and many with the wrong political colours are treated unequally and experience double standards? These are the faulty foundations - discrimination, disenfranchisement and destruction. Injustice is a moral failure.

How do you cure a demoralised nation? How do you stop a leaking ship from eventually sinking after the constant bailouts? Which advanced nation has such a system?

A nation divided by the fault lines of race or religion or political affinity or whatever unnecessary criterion is inevitably sitting on a communal time bomb.

When discrimination is formulated, institutionalised and practised, the resultant policies create unfairness and unhappiness, so whither a sense of shared future?

That vital missing conviction, the missing "silver bullet", is equality - if a nation is to forge ahead together and enjoy national co-prosperity among all the races. A proper foundation has to be laid and leaks repaired.

Do for others, not do in others, putting people first, not just those of your entourage, is the missing mainstay of politics and nation-building.

Malaysia's paradox

Two recent articles by Dr TG Lim broaching the thorny topic of the bumiputra status is one pertinent starting point. People want to see poor Malays able to own their house but not through the discriminatory discount scheme when others don't even own a tin roof over their head.

It is not about race but equity.

The "bastardisation" of the country's original National Economic Plan and its perpetuation gave rise to widespread inequities from corruption in the government.

More than two million fed-up citizens have emigrated from the country in recent past decades, and many still prepare to emigrate. Many felt they were marginalised in their own country. Many want out because they feel hopeless. And who can blame them?

Once, it was mostly non-Malays but today, many Malays would not hesitate to put up their hands and flee if they could. They don't agree with the politics and the unfair policies. In his writings, one prominent Malay university professor has often alluded to the fact of his own strong sentiment to emigrate.

Many of them felt betrayed by successive governments who they opined have ignored their welfare and blighted their future.

It is such a sad paradox because Malaysia is one of the world's best countries and lifestyle places. And those who have made "Malaysia my second home" can attest to their comfortable self-funding retirement in their twilight years.

But the country has frittered away its most invaluable assets - its historic uniqueness as a heterogeneous nation and plural society and also its natural and human resources.

Malaysia has reserves of human talent untapped at home that surface every now and then through the news of their astounding success in many fields abroad.

The Grab story is the tip of the iceberg of Malaysia's loss and another country's gain. But do they care? That is the danger, the price of indifference and ignorance. When they feel the pain and realise their folly, it is too late.

Future generations will rue today's voters who caused their country's decline and left them a tattered and troubling legacy.

What is disappointing for Malaysia-lovers, those who love the country for what it offers - the multiracialism, the multi-cultures, the rainforests and natural scenery, the foodie's paradise and even its exotic history - is the skewed policy-making, corrupt cartels and brazen discrimination.

And no Malay leader with power then and now seems perturbed. None has grabbed the bull by the horns and worked for radical change.

The system needs an overhaul before the house is divided and governance collapses. Many of us will not be around then.

'Descended from migrants'

Ranjit Singh Malhi has written an apt expose in the Malaysiakini article Factual errors and half-truths in our history books. Incidentally, I am reading J Kennedy's History of Malaya and find that history repeats itself in astounding ways.

Today's political infighting is reminiscent of sagas elicited from the Sejarah Melayu - the treacherous incidents in the royal courts of power, the wheeling and dealing and the eventual decline of the kingmakers and the rulers themselves.

When history is whitewashed, recreated with a mosaic of half-truths and factual errors, it opens the country to misplaced policy-making based on false assumptions. It is the old Goebbels’ trick of turning lies into truth through repetition.

That was how Germany was misled by Adolf Hitler and his destructive ideas in Mein Kampf. There are parallels in false presumptions in the now irrelevant and distorted purview of history in the book Malay Dilemma.

It contains several false claims and hypotheses, now debunked after 22 years of the author's failed experiment, attested by his own confession of having "failed to change the Malays". If he, the "great Malay leader", failed, what were the chances of the British and lain-lain (others) who were blamed for the Malays' dilemma?

The fact is, why would you want to change the Malays when they began nationhood with the other races as a decent, honest, respected and talented race?

My Malay peers are clever doctors, successful businesspersons and found in many other professional fields.

The political mind-benders created the false image of the exploited Malay, the Chinese bogeyman and the DAP chauvinists. In the process, several made themselves the real "ugly Malay". I grew up with Malays, love them, and they are not ugly, but many have been misguided and more eyes are now open.

True success is not necessarily measured by a yardstick of materialism. Ironically, the simple rural lifestyle of the Malays with modern utilities is what many affluent urban folks aspire to retire to these days.

Still, no one should doubt Malaysia is still an economic success story, despite the social and political costs and facing possible decline. The past holds no certainty for the future.

History's accuracy is important because people learn valuable lessons from it and avoid repeating the same mistakes. History-illiterates who become ignorant citizens are easily misled and follow the crowd in voting unwisely.

The most notorious false presumption is that the Chinese and Tamils are pendatang (immigrants) while the Malays ( a concocted definition of the race composed of anyone who fulfils the Constitutional construct and criteria) are the "sons of the soil" or bumiputera.

Why is it necessary to dichotomise and separate the people like in once apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany? What good did that do?

The truth is everyone in the country is descended from migrants if one goes back far enough in history. Penang was the original cosmopolitan place and extremely successful. There are even streets named after exotic communities of Jews and Armenians and prominent Chinese towkays.

The Chinese and Indians might have come in droves in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but they had left giant footprints in the Southeast Asian region long before the British opened up Penang, and Malacca became a vital port after its establishment by the immigrant Hindu political refugee, Parameswara, later turned Muslim, Iskandar Shah.

Like many others, I was born a true Malayan son in Penang. At kindergarten, we sang "God Save The Queen". Then after Merdeka we sang "Negaraku". So how did I suddenly stop being a son of the land of my birth, being relegated to some second-class citizen status when those of another race were elevated "sons of the soil"?

Why did my country downgrade me so that I have to play second fiddle to my neighbour, even my close school buddies of mixed Arab, Pakistani, Indonesian and Indian descent based on my race and religion?

History enriches our mind, and a person of truth will never be afraid of true history. Those of any religion, and likewise, atheists and all ideologues, must be sure what they believe is the truth in the face of lies.

Historical truth is what happened, what was attested by reliable written records, not someone's skewed creation. Closed minds, biased recordings, censorship and persecution etc., remind us of the Dark Ages.

An honest government with ikigai

DAP's Lim Guan Eng makes valid points in the Malaysiakini opinion piece "Why MACC must come clean on 'Minister' cartel". Also, there appears some truth in what convicted felon and former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak claimed recently as "selective prosecution".

The poignant question is, why are some obvious 'whales' of serious misdeeds and alleged corruption ignored? It is a question best answered by Najib himself and the leaders past and present.

It is time for all Malaysians to take stock of where the politicians are leading them. Do not blame the corrupt politicians alone when voters give the black sheep power to corrupt and abuse. They have no power but from the voters. Blind loyalty empowers them to despoil a nation.

The political actors are playing a game of let's pretend unity politics when they actually mean "you scratch my back - I scratch your back" in a tiresome sandiwara. The tragedy is many voters are fooled. It is not helpful in shaping moral integrity in governance.

What Malaysia urgently needs is a government that treats every citizen equally. An honest government with the ikigai (Japanese concept of the reason for being) to govern all citizens' welfare. A fair and moral government.

For more than 60 years, successive governments have done well to help many Malays. But the country has reached a critical point in its development where more patronage and cronyism has to stop and with their cessation, corruption. It is time to care for the needy regardless of race.

Unlike what people think, many Malays have no safety net. And when a good Samaritan like Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim steps in to help them, he is demonised and falsely accused of ulterior motives.

So how do we need a Malay academic's approval to help needy Malays? This sort of stirring, mischief-making, false accusing of non-Malay do-gooders is evil and deserving of condemnation. Slander is a sin in Islam.

So far, many political Malay leaders speak from the same old ethnocentric script and sing the same old racial song like an old vinyl record stuck in its groove. Since 1998 there have been changes.

There is a glimmer of hope. More and more Malays reject the old corrupt ways. They are my idea of patriots, true children of the land. I met many of them during Bersih 5.

Those Malays who sing a different tune do not have political and administrative power. Yet these Malays have the moral conscience, foresight, intelligence and above all, the wisdom to know that Malaysia is being short-changed when the best-qualified people, regardless of race and religion, are not in power and leading the nation.

It is time for a real change of the country's ikigai. What is the raison d'etre for its existence? What is the future for every citizen? Drop the discrimination and watch Malaysia rise or do nothing and see it drop into the abyss of prejudice.

Ramadan offers the opportunity for the entire country to do some serious soul-searching.

Is bigoted ethnocentricity pleasing to God? Does God teach us to be corrupt? Does God want people to declare his praise but do wrong to another? Is race discrimination taught by the God of truth, justice, compassion and love? - Mkini

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STEVE OH is a Malaysia-lover. He believes in the old country motto - Unity is Strength. Malaysia will prosper when love, integrity and 'love your neighbour as yourself' as the golden rule undergirds governance and discrimination like Corvid is dead.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.